


thorofare

by zealotarchaeologist



Category: Firewatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, alcohol is briefly consumed, character study kind of?, very very slight mention of suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 04:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6455014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zealotarchaeologist/pseuds/zealotarchaeologist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Delilah, alone, at the beginning of another summer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	thorofare

**Author's Note:**

> Just wanted to write a little something since she's a character that's very, very close to my heart.

Delilah’s been up since 5, by her count. The sun shows itself early way up here, and the animals are awake with it. A few days in, she’s still adjusting to the way time seems to pass differently in summer, the days languidly stretched out before her and yet always too short. It’s less of a pause in the hallway of time and more as if she’s entered an entirely different world.

The sky is practically oceanic over her tower, not a cloud in sight. The winds whip across her when she stands out on the rail to look over the rocks. Nearly took her hat off earlier in the morning.

She’s tried other towers, but this one is her favorite. You get used to a place after so many years. In her yearly life she’s always preferred to move around, never really found one spot to call home.

The Thorofare is different. Delilah isn’t so naïve as to claim she knows every tree, every rock. But she feels comfortable here and ten years younger.

As evidence: she’s absolutely burning through her fourth puzzle this afternoon, like the forest has stripped away the fog she’s been living in. She’s long stopped trying to do them back home—her brain seems to work like molasses when she does, and it only gets her frustrated. But out here she’s on her game, racing through it word after word. She gets momentarily stuck on a word with ‘3 pairs of double letters’ then eventually her mind lands on bookkeeper, and she scratches it in with vigor. This one’s a breeze.

The crosswords were a last resort at first. Anything to keep her entertained. Her mind tends to race around. It’s hard to keep up with her, and that’s mostly her own fault.

When she finishes she has to stop herself. It’s going to be a long season (she hopes) and she only has so many books. Delilah sighs, leans forward on her elbows and looks out the window.

Pine and juniper blanket the ridges of the Shoshone, save for the canyons where the trees are stripped away like paper burnt at the edges. The Thorofare River itself winds through the valley, glittering in the midday sun. She can see a bird of prey—prairie falcon, maybe—wheeling over the watchtower. What a view that must be. As good as the sights from her tower are, sometimes she’s jealous of the birds.

The day is surprisingly cool, even for so early in the summer, but she’s still itching for a drink. And yeah, that’s probably something she should be watching out for. But there’s no family to judge her out here, no (ex)boyfriend to get all concerned, so what does it matter.

She pulls out the flask that she usually uses for hiking, engraved with a kitschy looking mountain and filled with the remnants of a reposado that was a thoughtful going-away present. As if she wasn’t bringing her own stock of the cheap stuff. It doesn’t taste like oak, or flowers, or anything like that—when she drinks, she wants to get drunk. But this is smoother than her usual, more pleasant to sit and sip at her desk.

More and more often she thinks about just staying out here. Just slipping off into the woods at the end of the summer. Who would notice? Who would mind, really, if she never came back?

That’s probably a sign that it’s time she stops taking this job. She’s getting old, anyway, as her family never tires of reminding her. Time that she find someone nice and settle down.

Well, fuck that. She takes another sip. The only place she’ll ever settle down is at the bottom of some ravine out here. Maybe at the base of her tower if she’s feeling particularly nasty toward the next poor sucker to get this job.

She would hate it, eventually. She always does when she thinks she’s found something good. She’s going to end up trying to squeeze summer out of the bottom of a bottle, and maybe she’s always known that and maybe it’s time she stops pretending otherwise.

This time she takes more than a sip, stretching back in her chair. Her forearm is stained with ink where she’s been leaning it again the crossword book.

The tops of the pines sway in the wind. Delilah can’t stay inside any longer. She cranks the dial up on the radio just in case anyone needs anything and steps out of her room. The wind tosses her hair this way and that, uncaring, carrying with it the crisp clean scent of the mountains.

Delilah surveys her kingdom. That hawk is back again, circling overhead. She follows it with her binoculars for a while until it apparently sees something it wants, and drops down behind a hill in Two Forks’ sector.

Her gaze is drawn to the lookout there, conspicuously empty.

If all goes well, the new guy should be there tomorrow. She hopes to god he’s not boring.


End file.
